Timeline June 1939

Events in June 1939 11

• 1873 – 1939 Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) Died 26 June 1939, aged 65 Ford was an English novelist and editor. His novels include The Good Soldier and the Parade's End tetralogy. He founded The English Review and The Transatlantic Review and published many modernist writers.
• 1939 Voyage of the MS St. Louis Jewish refugees are refused entry in the Americas The liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg with more than 900 Jewish refugees. Cuba, the United States and Canada refused to let them land. The ship returned to Europe, and about a quarter of its passengers later died in the Holocaust.
• 1939 French Open 1939 Men: Don McNeill · Women: Simone Mathieu Last French Open before World War II.
• 1939 Heisenberg refuses to emigrate Visiting Goudsmit at Ann Arbor, weeks before the war He would next see Goudsmit in 1945, as the scientific head of the mission that captured him.
• 1939 – present Ileana Cotrubas Romanian Soprano Romanian operatic soprano whose sweet timbre, dramatic intensity and command of opera in multiple languages made her one of the most admired sopranos of the 1970s and 1980s. Born in Galati, she rose from a children's radio choir to perform on the world's greatest stages alongside Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Her signature roles included Violetta in La Traviata, Mimi in La Boheme and Gilda in Rigoletto. She was named an Austrian Kammersangerin and an Honorary Member of the Vienna State Opera.
• 1939 Ileana Cotrubas born in Galati Born Ileana Cotrubas in Galati, eastern Romania. Her father Vasile was a tenor in an amateur choir and her mother also sang, surrounding her with music from birth.
• 1939 – present Jackie Stewart The Flying Scot Three-time World Champion and a tireless advocate for improved safety standards in motor racing.
• 1939 – 1942 Chick Webb dies -- Fitzgerald leads the band Chick Webb dies of tuberculosis of the spine on 16 June 1939, aged 30. At 22, Fitzgerald takes over the leadership of his orchestra -- an almost unprecedented responsibility for a young female singer. She leads Chick Webb and His Orchestra (renamed Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra) for three years, recording and touring. The experience gives her musical authority and organizational confidence that shapes her entire subsequent career. She dissolves the band in 1942 and begins her solo career.
• 1939 – 2026 Ada Yonath (1939-2026) Died 31 August 2026, aged 87 Israeli crystallographer who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for mapping the atomic structure of the ribosome.
• 1939 Siam renamed Thailand Phibun's government changes the country's name Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram's government changed the country's name from Siam to Thailand. The change was part of a nationalist programme of cultural mandates. The name briefly reverted to Siam after the war and was restored in 1949.
• 1939 Dixie Clipper opens transatlantic passenger service Pan Am flies paying passengers across the Atlantic Pan American's Boeing 314 flying boat Dixie Clipper left Port Washington, New York, for Europe with 22 passengers. It was the first scheduled transatlantic passenger flight. The route went via the Azores and Lisbon to Marseille.